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He does not get a free pass for the way he handled himself this year. However, you cannot possibly think the only reason this team did not win was because of AD. Demps traded away draft pick after draft pick with no clear vision of how to construct a team. He then handed over ridiculous contracts to fringe NBA players to fill key roles on the team. Can you honestly say that the front office put the right players around AD for this team to become a winner and it was only AD who failed?
Where did I say the *only* reason the team did not win was because of AD? I already said Dell messed up and got fired because of it. That however does not excuse AD. Dell made mistakes but the past 2-3 seasons he made solid moves and gave AD and really solid team around him the last two years.
It's extremely disengenious to say, "it's not AD's fault look how injured this team was this year." while also not giving Dell the same pass. If it's not an excuse for Dell, it's not an excuse for AD. I've watched Lebron drag WAY worse teams to not only the playoffs but the finals. AD is literally claiming he is the best player in the world. He better share some type of blame for this not working.
Last edited by Mythrol; 04-18-2019 at 08:22 PM.
You said you wanted to get rid of AD because he has not won here. He does not build the roster. The only criticism I can see that really is a good reason to move on is that he misses a lot of games (and that he handled himself like a baby this past year). Demps built the roster. Do you think lesser players would have had us in contention for a championship with the rosters Dell built for the applicable coaching staffs?
That isn't what I said at all though. This was my explanation on wanting to trade AD:
It's not just about AD not winning here. It's if we sign him to a supermax deal we will not have the cap space or assets to greatly improve the team at all and we've already seen what AD can do with the current team, which isn't much. If we were in a position of being close to contention then giving AD the supermax and keeping him would be a no brainer. That isn't the case here though. If we give AD the supermax there's no guarantee of ever being able to improve the roster significantly around him. We would like to think AD could "recruit" a star but that seems unlikely when he literally just demanded a trade from the organization.
As far as the rest of your comments, they're irrelevant. I'm looking at the situation we are in now. If you want to lay all the blame on Dell and give AD a free pass, ok fine. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter because we are here now in our current situation. If I were only looking at the less than 1% chance we could win a title, then maybe AD is the only way for us to do that. I simply don't think we will ever win a title here so I'd rather a better rounded team that fits each other and makes the regular season fun to watch while ultimately falling short. I'd rather 7 years of Portland than 7 more years of what we've had with AD.
I do not see that passing on giving a 26 year old superstar a supermax in order to gain cap space is the move that we should be making. However, it is not really worth arguing about as I do not see him signing an extension anyway. Let's just hope we get a solid deal out of the trade for him.
You said that with him we would not have the cap space or assets to greatly improve the team. So, it appears you want him gone to create cap space to improve the team. There is no way that we will get equal or better value for him in a trade. So, we would be downgrading a superstar in order to create space to add around lesser players.
Maybe to an extent, but consider this.
What teams in the league are there that have a single superstar, with a limited supporting cast, that win? What teams have ever been in that scenario? 2011 Mavs? 2007 Cavs? 2001 Sixers? Not many, is the answer, and of those I think only one (2011 Mavs) has won a ring. Giving AD the supermax in and of itself is a great idea. But the team doesn't exist in a vacuum: we aren't a FA destination, we don't have the bird rights on the kind of guys we would want to keep around like Payton and Randle, and Jrue already has a sizeable contract. Giving AD a supermax on this team would be, if not bad, at least extremely risky because then we would have damn near $70m of cap space gone in just two players (AD would be near $40m a year and Jrue is $27m per for the last two years of his deal, I think), and no promise of being able to put anyone around them.
Then you have to ask the question: okay, but maybe that's not a problem? 2011 Mavs, it was Dirk and Jason Terry and then kind of just a bunch of good roleplayers that didn't cost a ton of money. Maybe AD and Jrue can be our Dirk and Terry and we just put pieces around them. Sure.
But we've tried that already. It doesn't work. AD has not been able to lead our team into the playoffs with any kind of consistency. Why would anyone think he'll suddenly figure it out now just because you give him a supermax?
Basketball.
That's a cause and effect. That's not a reason for wanting AD gone. Me saying "If we sign AD to the supermax and attempt to build around him, we won't have the cap space or talent to fill in our holes" does not mean I'm saying "we should let AD walk for nothing so we can have cap space."
What is equal or better value? It's not about getting a superstar in return. It's about getting "lesser" players with potential that fit our team better and fills in holes we've had for a long time. Maybe it's a downgrade at the PF position but if we can upgrade PG, SF, C during the regular season we can actually be a better team overall. If we can get actual depth and picks that have potential instead of a depleted top heavy roster we can be a better team overall. So no, in a vacuum we can't get an equal or better value to AD but in our current situation where we basically need starters at every position outside of SG, and we need a ton of depth trading him for players and picks might be better for the long term success of our team. Even if that means we lower our chances of winning a championship because we don't have a "superstar".
Last edited by Mythrol; 04-20-2019 at 06:39 AM.
How many teams win championships with no superstars? At least if we had AD, we have the potential to get another. Maybe we luck out in the draft or Griffin is able to work something out or a fringe all-star thinks that this may not be a terrible destination with a real front office.
If we have AD, signed to that supermax, there are essentially two ways that we could potentially get another superstar. The first is lucking out in the draft, the second is a talent who is willing to take a MASSIVE paycut to play here, or (as you say) a fringe all-star who takes a leap once they get here.
Here's the problem: either of those two situations is improved by not having someone on the team already on a huge contract.
Draft: if we draft a player who turns out to be a superstar, then all of a sudden we don't need AD anyway: we have the superstar that you think we require, and we don't have to pay $40m per year to keep him either. In that situation, having the cap space to build a deep team around him is probably more productive in the long run than having a team with 2 or 3 good players and then a stockpile of minimum old guys and fringe-players.
Massive paycut: Not happening.
Fringe all-star who takes the leap: Extremely unlikely, but even if that were to happen then surely, again, we're just in the same situation as with the draft. That is, we have a talented, all-star calibre player on a relatively cheap contract who it would probably be better to build around than to try and scrape together a bunch of 35 year olds and fringe-league-players for minimum contracts.
I do want to caveat all of this by saying that if AD were to sign the supermax, I would hope to God that I'm wrong and that he finally takes that alpha leap, but seeing the pathetic way he's behaved over the last few months I don't think that's likely. He seems more cowardly than ever.
AD isn’t staying here. Sorry folks. Also, Ainge isn’t getting rid of Tatum. Kyrie is about 90% out of the door. He’s not giving up Tatum to rent AD for a year. AD wants to be a Laker. He’ll be one whether we like it or not. Should have traded him last year. The longer the Pels keep him the less they’ll get for him.
The most overused words on Pelicansreport.com. Wrongly, I might add.
ELITE - (often used with a plural verb) the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.
GREAT - notable; remarkable; exceptionally outstanding
These words should not be used lightly
Someone needs to tell Ainge that, then, cause he's made a bunch of statements that make it sound like he's very much willing to trade Tatum.
Everyone knows AD wants to be a Laker. Nobody cares. It's not his choice for another year, and we already know teams don't care that much about where players ''demand'' to go, because they get traded elsewhere anyway. PG wanted to be a Laker. Now he's in OKC. Kawhi wanted to be a Clipper, now he's in Toronto. Kyrie wanted to be in NY, now he's a Celtic. Players get sent where teams believe it's convenient. I can't think of a single time in the last five years where a player has demanded a trade to a specific team and has ACTUALLY been traded there.
Teams are willing to take bets on players when they are top tier players, and AD is better than any of those three. You can argue about whether you think the Celtics will be willing to offer up the entire war chest or not, sure, but the argument that AD wants to go to LA and therefore nobody will cough up for him is just beyond ridiculous. Only someone who hasn't been paying attention to the NBA for like three years could say that.
Edit: not sure why you're saying ''sorry folks'' either. Most of us don't want AD back, and most of us also agree that he's going to get traded.
Your timeline is completely wrong. How can Kyrie be 90% out the door when he doesn't even know what's going to happen after the playoffs? Before anyone knows what their next moves is for a full month, the trade will have been agreed to. Basically, once the lottery happens, we'll know what's going to happen, and depending on who gets what pick, the Celtics will only know what our demands are and Tatum is a non-starter if he isn't in the deal.
If they don't give up Tatum, they don't get AD. This is what Ainge has been gearing up for for years now. If Ainge was willing to bank on Kevin Garnett coming here when he totally didn't want to and convincing him to stay, then surely Ainge would like his odds of convincing Kyrie knowing he's got AD in the bag.
Here is what he thinks of you
They’ll be a suicidal people on here when Griffin trades AD to the Lakers
Yes, Magic Johnson publicly stated he didn't think the Lakers were going to be able to get any superstar this summer and then quit but really he knew the Lakers are going to be able to get AD.
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